With the increasing popularity of golf, the use of golf carts has become very prevalent. The use of the carts allows more people to play because such use enables those to play who are physically unable to walk the required distance and because their use reduces the time required to play a course enabling more people to use the course during a given time period.
Winter and relatively bad weather no longer deter golfers from enjoying the game. To provide more comfort, the normally open-air carts are frequently provided with enclosures that generally include roofs, windshields, rear curtains, and door closures of one type or the other. Most often, the door closures are simply curtains that zip or snap closed.
Various types of enclosures for golf carts and the like are shown in U.S. Pat. No. 2,460,399 dated February 1949 and issued to Schassberger; U.S. Pat. No. 2,682,427 dated June 1954 and issued to Bright; U.S. Pat. No. 3,709,553 dated January 1973 and issued to Churchhill et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 4,336,964 dated June 1982 and issued to Pivar; U.S. Pat. No. 4,621,859 dated November 1986 and issued to Spicher; and U.S. Pat. No. 4,773,694 dated September 1988 and issued to Gerber. Swinging doors are shown only in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,621,859 and 2,682,427 and door latches are shown therein. However, the latches are not similar to the latches of this invention.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,393,118 issued to Robert B Welborn on Feb. 28, 1995 illustrates doors for golf carts that are hinged at the front of the cart and swing on hinges to permit access to the interior of the cart. Although the doors are constructed from relatively rigid tubing, they do flex and are manufactured in basically one size to fit a variety of different carts and thus do not fit precisely. Also, roofs and roof supports frequently vary in size and in position on the cart. Accordingly, the provision of a suitable latch for the doors has presented a number of problems.
The lack of precision and the flexibility of the doors themselves cause problems in attempting to install a latch mechanism. The latches must be easy to operate from both inside and outside the cart. They must be simple and inexpensive and yet, require little, if any, maintenance.
An object of this invention is to provide an improved door latch for use on golf carts and the like that is inexpensive, simple, easy and convenient to operate from inside and outside the cart, and one that provides accommodation for the lack of precision fit of the doors.